Like Angels: Your Time Will Come (Failsafe/digital outlets)

From his longtime home in Japan, Rob Mayes oversees the extensive reissue of albums on his Failsafe label, now celebrating 40 years of independent releases.

And he's not beyond new releases either: witness this beautifully packaged double CD in a gatefold cover with a booklet of brief explanatory notes and pertinent photos.

Like Angels is in fact the one-man project of Robert McLean whose previous band was Christchurch's four-piece How to Kill.

But Like Angels – taking its name from How to Kill's 2010 album – is McLean's solo project of searing and layered guitars, drums and sometimes apocalyptic sonic breadth.

It's 90 minutes of instrumental music and in places it's Ragnarök-meets-Götterdämmerung or -- if you prefer -- an industrial strength prog-punk soundtrack to a film where giants walk the earth in very heavy boots.

It is massive and you don't need to be told to play it loud, it demands that.

In places it makes you want to start up the Panzer and invade Poland.

This is not to say its aural density is overwhelming, throughout there are nuances and unexpected avenues which emerge: there's what sounds like a nod to twisted Frippertronics (the 10 minute-plus scene-setting opener Plantagenet Kings/Mohua), elsewhere Hüsker Dü drop by to clear-fell the landscape and Cú Chulainn in Starlight (named for the mythic Celtic hero) is another magisterial 11 minute-plus epic of shapeshifting parts for guitar and synths.

But here too are other influences peaking out: Fountain of Youth/Destroyer of Worlds opens with a dinky keyboard part and space-rock synth before the engines ignite and the propulsive rock pulls you along with explosive energy and momentum.

It is thrilling and by time you've pierced the stratosphere you're glad there's more clear space and a slight slowing of the pace to consider Oppenheimer quoting a Hindu text (“Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds”) as he watched the first successful detonation of the atom bomb he'd been developing.

McLean is quite the drummer also, his strident work nailing down the heavier of these eight tracks.

The 20 minute Finisterre is different again: a lovely atmospheric and slow opening on chimed guitar sets up a more restful mood (in the notes McLean locates it by the ocean – hence the title – at the start of a journey, the lighthouse behind us). It's a real drift-away prog piece of shifting moods and sounds.

As the titles suggest, this is an album steeped in dark mythology, warrior heroes and conflict so warrants the scale and grandeur McLean commands.

We are used to heavyweight instrumental bands like Jakob and the aggressive sound of Xpressway artists, but for sheer heft, single-handed vision and execution, Like Angels/Robert McLean is a gladiator in an arena of his own.

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You can buy this album from Failsafe here

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